Day 2 of working towards some healthiness, in more ways than one

Weight: Gigantor

Cigarettes: 0 (This will always be a zero but is part of my ode to Bridget Jones)

Alcohol: 0 (This will also always be zero too but it makes me look good in one aspect of my life.)

Mood: Optimistic but with some hunger pangs now and again

MS: Some back pain and some muscle twitches in the eyelids, the fingers, left shoulder, the sides of my mid-section and the right leg (sounds worse than it is)

Okay, I survived day one of the Special K eating plan. I did slightly overeat at dinner but not any sweets, so I'll take it as a move in the right direction.

Breakfast is cereal with skim milk and some fruit. I need to eat the fruit here soon. I swallowed my 5 different morning meds, my multivitamin, my first Omega3 fish oil frozen pill (freeze it to get rid of the fishy taste!), and my 5000 IU of D3 with some water.

I can have two snacks that belong to the Special K family along with a cereal lunch. Then dinner is a normal dinner, not a pizza blowout. Good thing I like the different cereals they have.

Someone asked if this was the healthiest thing to do. The answer is of course it's not. But for now it's a great kick in the pants for me. I haven't been eating three times a day, I haven't been thinking carefully about what to eat when, and I like that this is easy, there's not much thinking about it and the plan is simple.

So for now and for me, this is a good start. (But thanks for worrying about me!)

Back to the weight issue. My weight is used as a barrier to keep others away from me, especially men. I use weight to stay away from men because my relationships with them have been generally disastrous. I grew up with a strong attachment to my mother because I wasn't allowed to see my bio-dad for most of my life for different reasons, most of them having to do with my mother.

While growing up, my mother was mostly always angry with me and filled with some angry words that made me feel completely unworthy for the most part. There were times when she was loving and I craved those few and far between moments. I grew up feeling very unloved and feeling unwanted. I didn't have my father around and I was too young to understand why he disappeared from my life. I had a mother who I wanted to cling to but she was so young and busy and immersed in a new marriage that eventually brought new children that she didn't have time for my neediness.

So weight serves that purpose for me. It's a barrier between myself and others because I grew up feeling as if I didn't belong, as if I was all wrong, as if wanting to be loved was a bad thing. Weight keeps people from getting too close and then leaving me because they never have that opportunity anymore, I don't allow it.

More messy stuff dragged from the closet and exposed to the light. Sometimes this emotional stuff can hurt as much as some of the physical aspects of MS.

Decisive Thursday

Actually, I already made the decision a few days ago and in so many ways I already feel so relieved. I have been waffling and wavering over this for about a month and I've decided, along with some of my medical providers, that the decision I finally came to is the correct one.

I have been out of work since Monday afternoon when I began round trip number one to my PCP's office. The second round tripper was the next day when I spoke with my original physician. We discussed his partner's idea to cut down on some meds (Hey, why not? Don't I seem to be switching stuff up about every week here lately?) to see if that helps with the mental cognition. I am willing to make some tiny concessions with that and I am cutting the dosage on my Requip and my Seroquel, which I use for sleep and not for its other mental illness properties.

Then we brought out the big guns and talked about "it". It meaning taking a medical leave. I'm going to do it and I have no reason to assume that I won't be approved. Then again, in my world, you should probably never assume anything since I just forgot my PIN number at the grocery store.

I do not have short or long term disability through work and didn't purchase it separately when I started down this path because neuro (loser) #1 insisted that I didn't have MS and the brain lesions were from a teensy concussion I had in 1989 that justallofasudden decided to act up and make my body go nucking futs in 2004. (Highly likely, eh?)

We do have a sick leave bank which I have used before, about five years or so, right before I really started to get ill with my MS and the first big flare. The sick bank will provide me with 100 paid days of leave and my insurance after I use up 30 days of personal, sick, and perhaps unpaid days. I don't have 30 days to carry over this year so this means there will be a bit of a gap in payments.

I don't care.

I feel like my brain is going to fry itself and I'll be the old fat lady in a bathrobe (note to self, find a bathrobe that fits your gigantic body and buy it) muttering to myself about nothing. I sometimes catch myself at home doing the most bizarre things for no reason. Not to mention that marking papers still takes me forever and I have learned to use my calculator to double check my own math work as a 38 year old! I make stupid errors that I don't even catch. It's totally embarrassing.

Hey kids, your teacher is an idiot who can barely read aloud the correct words to you and needs to have someone check her math homework! That's just what every parent wants, right?

The sign from above appeared in note form from a parent on a 5-week report on Tuesday. I found it stapled inside one of my students' Friday folders. It said (in Week 8, by the way) that perhaps I should have more patience with the children and that her son appeared to be unhappy this year.

Well, shiver me timbers! This is from a parent I've never spoken with ever or saw at Open House. It's always amazing how when grades come out the nasty stuff lets fly in the universe. He's a good kid, smart, quiet usually, sick often, and he has some grades that are low for him.

Perhaps if I were more patient....

I'm probably one of the most patient people out there because I can relate to being ill and feeling crappy and feeling overwhelmed. That note, stupid as it was, just made me really think about all that I've put myself through for those children, children that are important and deserve good things but they are not my children.

I love my job normally and my class really isn't horrid, it's just different this year and more challenging. I'm not the me I was even a year ago at this time. I process everything slower, my speech gets messed up, I'm not as able to think on my feet, and I forget things I know how to do. My whole life has become work and how it's not working for me at this time.

Maybe others think it's a failure. I don't know. I'll have to go back and eventually finish out the year in 2009. That will be difficult. The kids will have had a substitute for more time than they will have had me by the time I get back in there. What if no one has confidence in me? What if the parents think I'm an idiot?

What if I get so much better on the Tysabri that I can think straight, feel more positive, become energized like I used to be? What if I enjoy my passion for teaching again?

What if.........?

Please don't let this kid be in my class!

Okay, I know that is an image that some of you may find offensive. It made me laugh as I was searching for graphics this morning so I am keeping it. It's my blog and I'm not always a perfect little lady. I need the laugh because Pac-Man is STILL not working and not much makes me laugh heartily these days.

I do teach students a few years older than this fellow who is telling someone else they are number one, but this sign isn't one that is entirely foreign to my room. It seems like every year there is at least one special bundle of pre-pubescent joy who has discovered the power of "the finger". They use it secretly to taunt others in my room when I turn my back and write on the board, which is not a chalkboard but rather a whiteboard.

I have pretty decent behind-my-back teacher vision for the big stuff but "the finger" tends to slip by me because it's silent and quick, unlike those loud, and thankfully rare, episodes of flatulence where some ten year-old lets one rip during a quiet test or while reading aloud.

It's not really about "the finger" but about doing something one knows isn't acceptable and is slightly naughty. I use it myself on occassion when people do incredibly stupid and asinine things while driving.

Sooooooooo... besides "the finger" this is other stuff rolling around in my lesion-filled head.

1.) The sick pit in my stomach knowing that I have to go to work tomorrow all day and that I need to be in school most days this week. The kids are coming, no matter what.

2.) I'm waiting for the call from the neurologist's office about setting up an appointment to sit down and do the paperwork for Tysabri. We know that my doc doesn't call when I need him so I'll give the office two days, maybe just one, and then call to see if this can be done this week.

3.) Next week is school. No going back, summer vacation is over, get your big girl panties on, get up at the crack of dawn, and hope and pray for the best. Why is this year so different from every other year? Why am I filled with dread and uncertainty instead of delight and a reasonable amount of nervousness?

How am I going to get past this??????

4.) I'm also waiting to hear from the LASIK people about an okayed surgery and then talking about pricing. More money and time going to medical stuff but I hope this surgery really helps and works.

If you believe in prayer, feel free to send one up for me. I can also use any positive thoughts you can send my way. In the typical words of all fifth-graders when they finish a writing assignment:

The End!!!